One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother;
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love :
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above,
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow!
WHEN passion's trance is overpast
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!
It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest-and burn, and be
The secret food of fires unseen-
Could'st thou but be as thou hast been.
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets re-appear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea,-but two which move
And form all others, life and love.
THE golden gates of sleep unbar,
Where Strength and Beauty, met together,
Kindle their image, like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Night, with all thy stars look down—
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew!
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight:
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew.
Fairies, sprites and angels, keep her
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, ere it be long !
Oh joy! Oh fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun?...
Come along!
1. "SLEEP, sleep on! forget thy pain.
My hand is only on thy brow,
My spirit on thy brain,
My pity on thy heart, poor friend;
And from my fingers flow
The powers of life, and, like a sign,
Seal thee from thine hour of woe,
And brood on the, but may not blend
With thine.
2. "Sleep, sleep on !-I love thee not;
But when I think that he
Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds
Might have been lost like thee,
And that a hand which was not mine
Might then have charmed his agony,
As I another's-my heart bleeds
3. "Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of
The dead and the unborn.
Forget thy life and love;
Forget that thou must wake; for ever
Forget the world's dull scorn;
Forget lost health, and the divine
Feelings which died in youth's brief morn;
And forget me, for I can never
Be thine.
4. "Like a cloud big with a May shower, My soul weeps healing rain
On thee, thou withered flower.
It breathes mute music on thy sleep;
Its odour calms thy brain;
Its light within thy gloomy breast
Spreads like a second youth again.
By mine thy being is to its deep
Possessed.
5. "The spell is done. How feel you now?" "Better,-quite well," replied
The sleeper. "What would do
You good, when suffering and awake?
What cure your head and side?"
"What would cure, that would kill me,
And, as I must on earth abide
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break
ROUGH wind that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long ;
Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,
Wail for the world's wrong!
WHEN the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead ;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet notes are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute;
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind in a ruined cell,
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